With Manchester United sitting on top of the table, a point ahead of champions Manchester City, a change of manager at either club seems improbable.

There’s a six-point gap between City and Chelsea in third. After just 14 league games, United are 12 points ahead of Arsenal and have more than twice as many points as Liverpool.

If the league continues as it is, both Manchester clubs will finish over 40 points ahead of Liverpool. In 1990, United and City both finished 31 points behind Liverpool.

But if Sir Alex Ferguson decides that he wants to call time on an incredible career, if Manchester City consider their European form is not good enough and it’s time to change Roberto Mancini, one man would be favourite to take over at both clubs.

That 41-year-old from a town of 8,000 in rural Catalonia is currently renting an apartment overlooking Central Park in Manhattan’s upper West Side. Pep Guardiola is taking a sabbatical with his family after five years in management at Barcelona, four of them with the first team when he won everything there is to win, including the European Cup twice against United.

Ferguson couldn’t understand why Guardiola stepped down in the summer because for him it’s about keeping going.

He felt that Guardiola’s great Barcelona side could have matched the stellar Real Madrid team which won the first five European Cups. Bettering them would have been Ferguson’s motivation, but that’s no slight on Guardiola, whom United once tried to sign as a player. As did City.

Former United and City forward Andrew Cole recalls a day in training with the Blues in 2005.

“I saw a familiar looking, new player,” says Cole. “Few of the other lads realised that it was Pep Guardiola. He spoke English and was friendly.

“He was on trial at City and showed his class in training straight away – the class which made him arguably the best defensive midfield player in the world earlier in his career for Barcelona and Spain.

“Guardiola didn’t sign for City, Stuart Pearce offered him a six-month deal and he wanted more, but he didn’t do too badly after moving into management at Barca!”

Instead of City, Guardiola moved to Dorados de Sinaloa of Mexico. Always expect the unexpected with Guardiola.

It was never made public, but United wanted Guardiola four years earlier.

Ferguson, writing the foreword of Guillem Balague’s new biography of Guardiola, reveals: “I missed out on signing Pep Guardiola when he realised his future no longer lay at Barcelona.

“I thought I had a good chance of getting him: maybe the timing I chose was wrong. It would have been interesting; he was the kind of player that Paul Scholes developed into.

“He was captain, leader and midfield playmaker in Johan Cruyff’s incredible Barcelona Dream Team and displayed a composure and ability to use the ball and dictate the tempo of a game that made him one of the greatest players of his generation. Those were the kind of qualities that I was looking for.

“I ended up signing Juan Sebastian Veron for that reason. Sometimes you look at a really top player and say to yourself: ‘I wonder what it would have been like if he had come to United?’ That is the case with Guardiola.”

In Pep Guardiola – Another Way of Winning, Ferguson speaks of Guardiola the manager too.

“One thing I noticed about Guardiola – crucial to his immense success as a manager – is that he has been very humble,” Fergie writes.

“He has never tried to gloat, he has always been very respectful – and that is very important. He played the game in a certain way; he wasn’t tremendously quick but a fantastic composed footballer.

“As a coach he is very disciplined in terms of how his team plays, but whether they win or lose, he is always the same elegant, unpretentious individual. And I think it’s good to have someone like that in this profession.”

Chelsea have long coveted Guardiola, but his values are totally at odds with those currently being espoused at Stamford Bridge. It would be different in Manchester, but whether there’s an opening for him in England’s north is another issue.